‘Assassin Nation #1:’ Advance Comic Book Review

Someone is trying to kill one of the most famous assassins in the world. So, what does he do? He tries to hire all of the other greatest assassins in the world to protect himself. That’s it. That’s the concept of this story. It’s a high-concept shoot-em-up. You can expect a lot of ego to be thrown around from characters that have elevated eccentricities, and a lot . . . a LOT of bullets to be fired. If you saw Brie Larson in Free Fire, Joe Carnahan’s Smokin’ Aces, or Shoot’em Up with Clive Owen, or… you get it. There’s an entire subgenre of film that’s poked its head over the horizon in the last decade or so.

Since the comic is so straight forward, it relies on the wit of the writer and the ferocious, playful, visceral skills of the artist to create a believable, yet slightly over-the-top, game of who will live and who will die, and both creators pull it off pretty well. At times, Erica Henderson’s art brings a retro '70s feel to the game, like you’re in a hotel lounge that hasn’t been retrofitted in decades. Kyle Starks keeps the script plugging forward, throwing in quips and jokes that sometimes make your eyes roll, but that’s part of the game being played. It’s not about making you laugh every time, but about bringing the multitude of characters to life quickly and cleanly. When bullets starts flying, you have a pretty good idea of who’s hitting and who’s missing, who to root for and who to hope “gets it.”

A B-storyline is started and dealt with for about a half a page, and something tells me that’s going to start to take precedence over the main story a couple issues in.